Nan Zhao is a Ph.D. Candidate at MIT Media Lab, where she works on Internet of Things that promote well-being and sustainability. Her work spans intelligent building control to smart urban furniture, and borrows from a variety of fields, including sensor technologies, wearable computing technology, and psychology.

Nan is also co-founder of Changing Environments Inc, a venture backed start-up developing technology for smarter cities. CE's first product Soofa, a solar charging bench for public spaces, has received love and support from around the world.

Before joining the Media Lab, Nan conducted research in smart grid and vehicle-to-grid technology. As a fellow of RWE AG, a leading electricity and gas company in Germany, she was closely involved in the development and kick-off of a smart grid project in collaboration with IBM. She is a graduate in Electrical Engineering from RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

Nan Zhao’s work has been covered by Reuters, Spiegel, FAZ, The Boston Globe, CNN, MIT News, Engadget, and others.